OMG! PRISON.

13 students. 1 bus driver. 1 professor. Two and a half hours of driving. AND PRISON! (Well, as prison as you get in Alaska).

Friday morning the Justice Club took it's annual tour to Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward, AK. All the planning and coordinating goes to Kristen (she is Madam President after all), except for the fact that I faxed all of the background checks myself! I am trying to take in all of the planning experience that she has, and hopefully get it down, because rumor has it that I will be nominated/running for the Justice Club President. Hopefully she can hook a brother up with as many of her contacts as she can so I can keep providing insightful and interesting events and lectures that my fellow students will enjoy participating in. (But that is IF I become president).

Aside from having to wake up at 6:30 on my only day off this week, I thoroughly enjoyed my tour and Q&A of the correctional officers and psychologists that work at SCCC. We arrived at Spring Creek at about 11:00 a.m. (the shuttle ride was about 2 hours and 45 minutes; thankfully I was in super good company) and the fun began!

For the first few hours that we were there, we were introduced to the superintendent, assistant superintendent, the head probation officer and a psychologist. We got the lay of the land and how each of their positions contribute to rehabilitating those offenders that are there. Spring Creek is the home of Robert Hansen a.k.a. The Butcher Baker. I think that he is on year twenty-something of his 461 years.

Spring Creek was built after the Alaska Supreme Court cases of Cleary (and a few other prisoners) v. pretty much everyone important in the state of AK. They claimed that being imprisoned away from Alaska in the FBOP was unconstitutional as the prison in AZ (where I believe they were) was not up to par as those jails in Alaska. Spring Creek was built as a result, and all of the outside prisoners were returned when it opened in 1988. Spring Creek was built for the capacity of 412 prisoners, but currently houses about 500 inmates. In 1994, Alaska started to send out the notorious criminals to the FBOP in Arizona, and more recently Colorado. Too bad we just can't open Goose Creek.... oh, right that's never going to happen...

It was interesting to hear about the furniture company that used to be up and running at Srping Creek for inmates to work in until it shut down a few years ago due to low funding. I guess it was a pretty legit furniture business because the table we were sitting at in the conference room during our Q&A was a $9, 000 table. OMG, I felt high class in a prison.... There was also an automobile shop in one of the other state jails in which inmates worked on all of the states vehicles; that also was shut down. After our 3 hour Q&A (which was a little long) we finally got to go tour the facility. It was amazing, and I really enjoyed seeing the place. We started out inside the main unit, which happened to be the time that all of the inmates were buying all of their goods from the commissary. We got a lot of shout outs, mainly to the girls, but there were a few call outs to the boys too. ;) It was quite lovely. We did what the officers told us to do, and ignored the most of it. We were not able to talk back to any of the inmates as that would instigate more harassment. We walked through the rec yard and people seemed to be happy to see us walking through the yard, even though the jeering continued.

We made it into the Echo unit which housed the inmates who were under observation by the psychologists that worked at the facility. It was pretty quiet in there because it was free time and people were roaming around the rec yard and buying there goodies from the commissary store in the first building that we were in. The second unit that we went into, which for the life of me I can't remember the name, I think it might have been the Fox unit... (but I could be totally making that up). This was the YOP unit (Youth Opportunity Program). Holy cow... I kind of felt like I was in Juneau; I knew a few kids in there. We had the choice to talk to some of the youth and ask them about there time and what they were in for, and how they passed the time by. The 21 year old that my small group talked with (not sure if I can say his name) was in for 'you know, a few grand theft auto charges.' He chose to serve out all of his time so that he didn't have to deal with probation after he got out. On the inside he finished his high school diploma and has completed 9 college credits that will count towards his degree. He told us about his xbox360; and the unfortunate fact that they could only play 'E' rated games, and watch PG-13 movies. According to this youth, Spring Creek is 'pretty chill compared to what people really think of it.' Before arriving at Spring Creek, he did a few months in jail in Cook Inlet, and before he got transferred his fellow inmates informed him that he was going to 'gladiator school.' Much to his surprise, it was nothing of the hype that he heard it to be. In fact, he told us that they all watched the Lock Up episode on Spring Creek and cracked up at how much they dramatized it for viewers watching. All of the youth were super excited that we were there.

The next part of the tour was best part. We took a tour of House 1, which is also known as the jail inside of Spring Creek. The officers informed us that House 1 was were all the 'bad' inmates go. They are arrested like they would be on the outside of Spring Creek, and go before a review board, and if they are found guilty they get locked up in a room for 23 hours each day of their sentence. This is as close as Spring Creek gets to 'The Hole' or solitary confinement. After they finish their sentence they are released back into the general population. Many of the inmates can spend the majority of their sentences in House 1; it's all up to them. From the moment that we all walked into House 1 we got a show of musical vulgarity. Many of the inmates, aside from cat calls to the lovely and beautiful ladies that I was touring were asked to show them our 'buttholes' (that being the least vulgar, and least inappropriate for my family blog to share); many of the older inmates we could see through their windows looking at us with 'rape eyes' as Kristen coined it and creeper smiles, and continuously flashed us their bodies. The banging and yelling was surprisingly in sync the whole time we were in House 1. All that free time is good for something I guess. ;)

After the excitement of House 1 we were taken upstairs to the visitation center and got a first hand look at the rooms that inmates met with defense lawyers. It was like sitting at the lego table at Thanksgiving all over again with the plastic chairs. Literally. (Yes mom and dad, I remember those days!) The chairs and tables are both plastic so inmates can't rage on their lawyers while discussing a terrible plea deal, or whatever else they might be talking about. While we were walking out of the visitation center we were able to hear one family going into the room to talk to their inmate family through the glass with the phone. The officer was instructing the family to keep the inmate under control or they would take him back and they would not be able to get all of their time in. (Which would suck, because that's a long drive home).

That was pretty much were the tour ended, aside from our last bit of questions. I'm still debating on whether or not I could see myself doing corrections work. I'm pretty sure that it would be interesting, and would always be something new and exciting which is super appealing to me because I am super over doing the same old same old everrrrry day.